


Abstain/Devour

by Maraamritadyer



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, it's what they deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 11:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27850014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maraamritadyer/pseuds/Maraamritadyer
Summary: A summer morning in Paris, 1971.
Relationships: Vasily Borgov/Beth Harmon
Comments: 11
Kudos: 124





	Abstain/Devour

**Author's Note:**

> I can't get enough of this rare pair so in a bout of creativity I decided to spit out this little piece, it ain't much but it's honest work.

The sun wakes him up first thing in the morning. She is laying on her side, showing him the mess of her red hair and her delicate spine.   
He gently runs his fingers on it. 

France has been nothing but kind to him.   
After losing against the american, he soon realized that his days were counted. The government was at least disappointed in his unsatisfactory performance and the party was humiliated because he lost against some bright eyed american girl. His marriage ended in a blink of an eye, some of his friends stopped talking to him. 

He wasn’t blind. 

Vasily became a french citizen in the spring of 1970, never to step foot in the motherland ever again.   
It didn’t bother him as much as it should, he thinks. 

Summers in Paris are unbearably hot, sometimes he feels like a husky abandoned in the middle of the desert. But he’s no dog, just a man walking on old cobbled streets in the middle of a suburb, surrounded by beautiful little houses with beautiful little gardens.   
He keeps roses in his front garden now, to never forget their smell in the peak of their season. 

The girl at the bakery fixes him a box of perfectly shaped pink and blue macarons and hands him a bag with the crusty bread and soft cheese he has been buying since he moved into the neighbourhood. On his way back he offers a shy smile to the little girl who has taken the habit of watering her plants at the crack of dawn, she waves at him eagerly as he walks away. 

Someday Vasily will step on Saint Petersburg again, but for the time being, he decides that he loves Paris. 

He doesn’t understand how Beth manages to sleep for so long and so deeply. When he walks into the bedroom carrying breakfast she is still asleep. Vasily secretly envies her, for he can roll around the bed for hours before closing his eyes for good, only to wake up with the first rays of sunshine coming through his window. 

“Liza,” He kneels to be at her face level. “I brought breakfast,” His voice is as gentle as the hand caressing her cheek, he presses a kiss to the tip of her nose before shaking her gently.   
“Why must you wake up so early,” Beth pouts. It’s part of their game now: Vasily brings her breakfast to bed and checks the locks at night while Beth merely closes her eyes and is dead to the world.   
“I’m russian darling,” He teases before pulling her into a lazy kiss. Laziness is reserved for saturday mornings. “We can’t be undisciplined like people in the west.” Beth sticks her tongue at him before yawning and rubbing her eyes. 

She finally notices the spread. “What’s the occasion?”   
“Nothing in particular.” Vasily confesses as he hands her a cup of warm tea. “Just you, just me.”   
“Quite the occasion.” Beth half agrees, half teases. 

He takes a bite off a pink macaron, soft almond cookie melting in his mouth along sweet and tangy raspberry jam. “I’ve never had one of these before,” he admits. 

“Why not?” She’s curious as she grabs a blue one.   
“You can’t miss what you don’t know.” Vasily says simply with a small shrug, and Beth gives him a look of sadness, not a drop of pity in it: Just sadness for the hardships he faced in his life, for the hardship his loved ones have lived through.   
“Well, to macarons then.” Beth raises her cup of tea to make a toast, and the porcelain makes a small noise as they carefully clinck it. 

“Last year I abstained, this one I devour.” Vasily says simply before eating the last of his cookie. 

Beth is looking at him with a teasing smile. “Should I be afraid?”   
He bites her shoulder for good measure, “Terrified, darling.”

**Author's Note:**

> The quote “Last year I abstained, this one I devour.” is a reference to You are happy by Margaret Atwood, the queen she is.   
> If you'd like to talk about vasily and beth, come say hi to my tumblr: leias-rebelion


End file.
